Path of Exile 2 – Fate of the Vaal League Mechanic Guide

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With the new 0.4 update, Grinding Gear Games brings us a brand-new mechanic in Path of Exile II. With this new mode, players can build their own Vaal-inspired dungeons, clearing out deadly rooms and progressing across the board in search of the dangerous new Pinnacle Boss, Atziri.

Of course, this isn’t exactly an obvious mechanism to figure out. In fact, on the first run through, you’re going to be pretty confused as to how it really works. Not only do you have numerous board tiles, but they all interact with each other depending on how they’re placed. When you add in Architects, treasure rooms, and Medallions, well, safe to say, it can get pretty hectic.

So let’s take a look at everything this new dungeon-building mode has to offer, and what rewards we can expect from completing it!

How to Access the Temple

As you start playing as a new character in the 0.4 league, you’ll quickly start seeing these Vaal-built circles on the ground. Around these circles are enemies infused with a glowing red light. Once you take these enemies out, a magic/rare chest will appear, and one of the 6 bulbs around the circle will light up.

Once you’ve tackled the circles 6 times, a portal will appear that takes you to the Vaal temple. Here you can access the temple console and begin to create your very own dungeon.

When in the mapping stage, you can run through Waystone Tier 1 maps and activate the beacons on those, to give yourself more chances at the temple as quickly as possible.

Building the Dungeon

Once you access the console for the first time, you’ll see that you have 6 tile pieces to choose from. You will be given a random selection of either pathing pieces or room pieces.

Be cautious about where you place these tiles, as they cannot be manually removed once they are in place. You won’t always receive 3 rooms and 3 paths; it can vary widely. Sometimes you may only receive a single path piece, making traversal increasingly difficult and time-consuming.

If you want to reset your dungeon, just beat the Architect over and over and don't place any more tiles.

Additionally, certain rooms can grant bonuses to others when placed adjacent to each other. For example, placing a Dynamo in range of a Prosthetic Research will upgrade it to Tier 2 and give it enhanced % multipliers.

Room Types

So what kinds of rooms can we encounter, and which ones are the most beneficial? Well, that very much depends on why you want to run the dungeon. You can either gun it to Atziri and focus on her uniques, or exploit and upgrade the rooms for increased rewards and corrupting machines.

Not only will rooms have unique features inside, but they will also add modifiers to the temple itself, affecting every monster within, including Atziri.

Room Name

Description

Temple Mods Tiers 1/2/3

Garrison

Commander

Armoury

Smithy

Generator

Spymaster

Legion Barracks

Synthflesh Lab

Flesh Surgeon

Transcendent Barracks

Alchemy Lab

Thaumaturge

Golem Works

Corruption Chamber

Sacrificial Chamber

Sealed Vault

The Garrison simply features a bunch of monsters for you to crush. It can also include a modification bench.	10%/15%/20% increased number of Monster Packs
Contains enemies and a simple boss for you to defeat. It can also contain a modification bench.	Rare Monsters have 15/30/60% increased Effectiveness
Here you’ll find some free equipment for you to loot. There can be enemies inside.	Humanoid Monsters have 15/30/60% increased Effectiveness
Contains a forge boss and a forging table where you can either equip your pieces with rune slots, improve their quality, or increase that quality past 20% and corrupt it. Requires a generator to improve.	Chests have 15/30/60% more Item Rarity
This is a generator with Construct enemies inside. It can power up rooms lined by the red line on the dungeon map.	Construct Monsters have 15/30/60% increased Effectiveness
This room contains a boss and several enemies inside.	8/15/30% increased effect of Temple Mods from Garrisons, Commanders, Armouries, Smithies, and Legion Barracks
Another room with simple Vaal monsters inside.	15/30/60% increased number of Rare Monsters
This room is vital for upgrading the Flesh Surgeon rooms later on. Otherwise, it simply includes normal enemies. Generator needed to upgrade.	Monsters grant 10/20/40% increased Experience
Here, you alter your own body to give you a buff that lasts until you die. This can only be done in a Tier 3 room.	Unique Monsters have 10/20/40% increased Effectiveness
Similar to the previous Garrison, but with Construct Monsters within	15/30/60% increased number of Magic Monsters
In the Tier 3 version of this room, you can insert a Soul Core to corrupt and improve it. Or you can take out the item and sell it instead.	15/30/60% increased Rarity of Items Dropped by Monsters
Here, you can either add slots to skill gems, improve their quality or corrupt them further than before.	8/15/30% increased effect of Temple Mods from Corruption Chambers, Treasure Vaults, and Sacrificial Chambers
This chamber includes normal monsters. However, Tier 3 will offer you a boss similar to the final Act 3 boss.	8/15/30% increased effect of Temple Mods from Generators, Synthflesh Labs, Flesh Surgeons, Transcendent Barracks, and Alchemy Labs
Here, you can corrupt items, similar to a Vaal Orb; however, in the tier 3 version, you have the chance to double corrupt.	Rare Monsters have a 15/30/60% chance to have an additional Modifier
In this room, you can find a unique item, with the chance to find a machine that can modify Vaal Unique items.	15/30/60% increased amount of Rare Chests
This room just has a couple of chests with some currency inside.	25% increased Rarity of Items Dropped by Monsters

Some rooms, like the Sealed Vault, will destabilise upon use, being removed when you access the temple again in the future.

It makes sense to try and split the temple into different sections instead of piling everything together. Keep the generator-benefiting sections on one side, and the combat-buffing rooms on the other.

See, when rooms destabilise, they can only remove the room at the front of the chain, instead of ones in the middle. Because of this, you should create chains of rooms, instead of a web of them. This way, you’ll have more rooms protected for longer!

The Architect

One of the most important mechanics about the temple you need to learn about is the architect and how this boss works. After Act 3, you’ll have the choice to fight the Architect, who randomly spawns in a position on the dungeon map.

Once you beat this boss, you can access the special console and add 3 reward rooms to the map. These rooms are generally found around the edges, and you’ll need a path to them to claim them.

Path of Exile 2: 6 Best Early Game Builds

For those struggling to pick a Class in Path of Exile II, this list covers a selection of great early-game builds to get you started!

However, once you complete the Architect, a massive number of rooms around your map are going to destabilise, so it’s not worth doing the Architect every single run, or you’ll quickly find yourself without a map to play on. In addition, each of the following rooms will also destabilise upon completion.

Kisharas’s Vault: Contains Currency
Vault of reverence: Contains a Lineage Support Gem
Jiquani’s Vault: Contains a Rune
Tablet Research: You can bring Map Tablets here to corrupt them
Ancient Reliquary Vault: Contains a Random Unique
Extraction Chamber: Used to remove items from socketed equipment
Royal Access Chamber: Used to open Atziri’s Chambers

If you want to face Atziri, you’ll first have to place down the Royal Access Chamber. On your next run, you can place paths over to the chamber and then run through the dungeon and fight the boss within. Only then will the door to Atziri’s chamber open.

Medallions

As you progress through the temple, eventually you will start to find medallions, dropped by normal enemies and bosses. These medallions can be used when occupying the Temple Console to provide valuable changes to the dungeon.

While all the medallions can be useful, there are certain ones that you’re going to want to hold on to, as they can seriously improve your gameplay. Foremost, we have the stock medallions:

Xopec’s Medallion - This will increase the amount of crystals you can store by up to 60. This means you can run a bunch of maps in a row, storing the temple charges, instead of running them every 6 maps.
Azcapa’s Medallion - Azcapa’s medallion will simply allow you to hold more medallions up to a maximum of 6.

Then we have medallions that improve the dungeon itself:

Juatalotli's Medallion - This will allow you to stop a room from destabilising. If you have a strong tier 3 and don’t want to lose it, consider using this.
Quipolatl's Medallion - This medallion allows you to improve the tier of a room without needing surrounding buffs like generators.
Puhuarte's Medallion - With this, you can re-roll the tiles you have on the left. If you need more paths, this is key!
Zantipi's Medallion - Finally, you can use this last medallion to add Waystone modifiers to your dungeon. This will undoubtedly make it more difficult, but also increase the rewards on offer.

And that’s really all the dungeon has to offer. At the beginning, it might seem like the dungeon doesn’t really offer you much. But once you upgrade your rooms and optimise the paths between them, suddenly the divines will start rolling in. Patience, folks, it just takes time.